Twitter Updates

June 17, 2018

Mark Steyn, once when talking about media bias, made the witty reference to the dish soap commercial in which the manicurist brags about how mild Palmolive soap is and tells customer Marge, "You're soaking it it."

The media are not the only ones soaking in it. The people in the top echelon of the FBI are too. While I haven't read the book put out the other day by the Inspector General, there are plenty of astute observers who have. See, for example, Kimberly Strassel's article Insubordination and Bias at FBI. Alternate link. Excerpt:

Be ready to hear the report absolves the FBI and DOJ of “bias.” Not true. It very carefully states that “our review did not find documentary or testimonial evidence directly connecting the political views these employees expressed in their text messages and instant messages to the specific investigative decisions we reviewed.” Put another way, he never caught anyone writing down: Let’s start this Trump investigation so we can help Hillary win.

But the bias is everywhere. It’s in the texts between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, and those of three other employees who are routinely “hostile” to Candidate Trump. It’s in Ms. Page’s freak-out that Mr. Trump might win the presidency and Mr. Strzok’s reply: “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.” It’s in a message from an unnamed agent in November 2016 who writes that although the FBI found Clinton aide Huma Abedin had “lied,” it doesn’t matter since “no one at DOJ is going to prosecute.” To which a second agent replies. “Rog—noone is going to pros[ecute] even if we find unique classified.”

March 19, 2018

That deputy who stood around while a killer blasted away at students inside a school in Parkland, FL, has been roundly criticized for his inaction. But did he have a legal duty to enter the building? Unless there was a Florida statute demanding that he do so, then he was not required to anything other than what he did.

I use nighttime talk radio as a sleep aid, and here in Midland, TX, a local AM station plays a delayed broadcast of The Joe Pags Show. The other night a caller tried to discuss that absence of legal duty, and Joe Pags insisted that the caller cite the law. The caller couldn't.

Actually, it's a Supreme Court case which ruled in 2005 on civil liability for police inaction. The holding was in favor of the police. Without a state statute demanding action, then the plaintiff had no cause of action against the police. The facts of the case in Castle Rock v. Gonzales were horrendous. The plaintiff's estranged husband kidnapped her children and ultimately murdered them. The wife called the police several times after the kidnapping, but the police did nothing for several hours.

A moral duty can't be enforced. And without a statute that demanded action, the Parkland deputy really had no obligation to run into the gun fight. That said, police departments in many jurisdictions train the officers to go toward the gunfire in an active shooter situation.

Meanwhile, there's that nagging old saying, "When seconds count, police are minutes away." No wonder so many citizens are obtaining concealed carry permits. As of about a year ago, 6.6% of the adult population in the U.S. had a carry permit. However, only about 1.2% carry on a daily basis. That percentage probably ebbs and flows in proportion to the number of high profile shootings in the headlines.

February 28, 2018

A friend once told about a DPS officer friend of hers who on occasion would pull over a car and thank the driver for driving safely. Sounded like it was well intended but also a good way to get some innocent person's blood pressure elevated.

Crestview, FL — In an unprecedented violation of the right of citizens to be free from unlawful search and seizure, the Crestview Police Department in Florida has announced a most insidious program. Driving safely is now a reason for cops to pull you over—under the guise that you’ll be “offered free pizza.”

Maybe that road is paved with good intentions. But it seems awfully intrusive. Furthermore, it could serve as an excuse to pull over someone overheard on an illegal wiretap. "No probable cause needed, your honor, just wanted to reward that safe driver, but he acted nervous and so I searched his vehicle."

February 17, 2018

After the non-stop coverage of the active shooter situation in Florida, civilians are no doubt hungry for advice on how best to keep from being one of the victims, should they ever be in such a situation.

There's a course being taught called Civilian Response to Active Shooter Events (CRASE). Police departments across the nation are putting them on for citizens in their jurisdictions. And there are a few videos online where computer uses can watch a class. Here are two, one from Arundel, Maine and one from Fort Worth, Texas. They are both about an hour long and similar but for the local cop stories told by the instructors.

A PDF of the video aids can be found here. Here's an outline of the salient points:

Civilian Response to Active Shooter Events

The background science of how people behave in high stress events Denial Deliberation Decisive Moment

One important point the officer who conducted the class I attended said was that when police arrive at an active shooter situation -- I'm paraphrasing here -- it's not like in the TV shows where the cops have a standoff with shooter demanding that he drop the gun. They will shoot anyone holding a gun. Citizens who are armed and innocent should keep that in mind when deliberating about whether to try to be a hero.

February 12, 2018

There have been some high profile vehicle accidents involving police officers here in Midland, Texas, lately. And the police chief may be right to suggest the officers need more training. And a driving simulator may be the best way to create hazardous driving situations minus the hazard. The morning paper tells us about it in MPD chief requests ‘driving simulator’.

But maybe those of us out here in citizen-land need something similar. As people get older their reactions slow down. But maybe they could keep that edge with practice. I've long thought that a driving simulator might be a way for drivers to practice, and thus help to keep their skills at high level. But the only way I've been able to come up with involves the simulators sold as games for Xboxes and PlayStations.

So if the Chief is successful in getting the city to invest in a simulator, maybe by renting out time to citizens the city could recoup some of the cost as well as improve driver safety. It might be a smart move for vehicle insurance companies to contribute to such an effort.

January 26, 2018

Most drivers will slow down and get out of the way of a police car, possibly to avoid the officer's attention. Of course, we are required to get out of the way when the lights and sirens are going, but in normal traffic we still do it. Should we? It's possible that that creates a false sense of entitlement to the driver of the police car.

The indictment alleges that Neely’s death was caused by Abrahim “operating a motor vehicle in a manner unsafe for the conditions of the roadway and by operating a motor vehicle at an unsafe speed and by failing to activate the emergency equipment of the patrol vehicle and by failing to take corrective and evasive action to avoid a collision,” Nodolf stated in her email.

Could the officer have assumed the other driver would get out of the way even though there was no emergency equipment on? That's one possible explanation, although the officer's explanation did not make it into the news. If the case goes to trial we'll learn more.

Known as predictive policing, the practice involves analyzing data on the time, location and nature of past crimes, along with things such as geography and the weather, to gain insight into where and when future crime is most likely to occur and try to deter it before it happens.

When police departments try to predict crime they are successful, up to a point. The mapping of crime hot spots has been around for quite a while. And police departments have used it successfully to highlight areas where more patrols might be useful.

It has been well known for years that a small number of people commit most of the crimes. Those individuals become well known to police. (The issues of race and privacy permeate the atmosphere inhabited by police and citizens, but that's a topic for another day.) The issue of what to do to actually reduce crime is an ongoing problem.

Furthermore, new influences are emerging. Shibani Mahtani updates us on a recent development in Social Media Emerges as New Frontier in Fight Against Violent Crime. (It's behind a paywall but available here for free.) There we learn that police are grappling with the influence of social media on prospective murderers. It's not a good influence. Here's an excerpt:

Facebook and other platforms have emerged as new frontiers in the fight against violent crime that continues to grip major cities.

In Chicago, which is on track to have more than 600 murders for the second year in a row, a number it had been below for over a decade prior, community leaders and police say the immediacy of these platforms has played a major role in escalating disputes, while also providing more evidence that can aid arrests and convictions.

“It pours an accelerant on what was already there,” said Eric Sussman, the first assistant state’s attorney for Chicago’s Cook County.

The Chicago Police Department and prosecutors don’t keep data on how many instances of violence were provoked by an exchange on social media, but they say anecdotally that they are seeing a rise in the number of “petty conflicts that have leapt from social media platforms to violent crimes on the street.” A Wall Street Journal tally found at least 100 cases nationally where an act of violence was streamed on just one of these platforms, Facebook Live, since it was launched in early 2016.

“Unfortunately, in too many instances, these conflicts are resolved with a gun,” said a Chicago police spokesman.

Unfortunately, like so many law enforcement innovations, use of Facebook posts is more helpful in clearing crimes than actually preventing them. There are some who might suggest custom notification with warnings to people who pop up on the list of potential criminals. But if there is a disproportionate number of minorities in that group then it becomes problematic.

In any event, that quote at the top of this post still stands. Predictions are tricky, especially if they are about the future.

October 16, 2017

Price Robinson recently retired from the MPD police chief's job, and three candidates are currently under consideration by the Midland, Texas, City Council. The morning paper contains a Q&A with each on them -- see it at Police chief candidates meet with community.

Deputy Chief Jeff Darr is the only applicant currently serving in the Midland Police Department. He is eminently qualified for the chief's job, and his local experience alone should win him the position.

Meanwhile the other two applicants are recently retired chiefs from other jurisdictions. And while they are certainly entitled to a job somewhere, citizens need to consider that they are probably already receiving a pension or equivalent remuneration from their old jobs and are currently looking for a retirement job.

In any event, Jeff Darr is the best choice.

Post Script. Here's something from the interview with one of the other applicants that jumped out. The former chief of St. Louis, MO, used the word "progressive" no fewer than three times in the short interview. Isn't that word a Democrat party dog whistle? Just wondering.

October 14, 2017

The rationale for the professional players who refuse to stand for the national anthem is claimed to be that they are protesting police killing of blacks. If so, their reasoning is based on a flawed set of facts.

Walter E. Williams has a piece titled Blacks vs. Police cites research which says that in 2017 roughly 22% of people killed by police were blacks. (For those reliant on quotas, that's too high. But the numbers alone don't really prove anything about police attitudes toward blacks.)

Dr. Williams takes it further, or rather narrower, by focusing on Chicago where there have been 533 murders and 2,880 shootings so far in 2017 of which fewer than 13% have been solved. He suggest that crimes of black vs. black might be a better focus of concern.

I would suggest a focus on the educational system that appears to fail black significantly. Professional sports shouldn't be the only avenue for success for black people.

Anyway, regarding the kneeling as a form of protest at football, those guys are entertainers who don't entertain me. So they can do what they want.

August 23, 2017

I just finished reading Don Winslow's novel "The Force" and can say it's a very entertaining book. It's about a crooked NYPD sergeant who happened to be the top dog in a task force they called "Da Force." The book started out slow, and was a little bit dull with all the background detail, but at the mid point it skidded over into the fast lane and didn't let up until the last page. A good book.

It could be a companion piece with "Blue on Blue," the non-fiction book by Charles Campisi who was the head of IAB at the NYPD for many years. In that book he told stories of snaring crooked cops. It's a good counterpoint to "The Force" and should probably read last as a palate cleanser.

Both of these books were available at the public library in the modestly sized city of Midland, Texas. Otherwise they are available to non-cheapskates for purchase in various formats from Amazon.com.

April 11, 2017

By now everyone has see that famous Pepsi commercial and heard of the controversy. Apparently, some political groups claim the exclusive right to protest in the street. And while the commercial shows a march for peace, love or some such, said groups took offense for reasons only a social justice warrior would understand -- cultural appropriation and privilege are the left's buzz words these days.

It's a fictional scene in the commercial, but the thing that stands out is the willingness of the police officer to accept a container from a demonstrator and take a swig. We don't see him open it. So was it already open when he accepted it? Oh boy, that would be a dangerous undertaking. Heaven only knows what could have been in it.

Even if it was unopened the can's lip could have been smeared with LSD, or worse, the stuff that killed Kim Jong Nam.

March 02, 2017

The Black Lives Matter movement has been notably silent lately. Someone must have shushed them -- their financial backers? The DNC? In any event, they didn't bring out the Obama coalition vote in November and have probably been abandoned by high powered supporters.

That aside, one needs to remember some of their goals which included disarming police or establishing police no-go zones in inner cities. What would happen if they had been successful?

Shots punctured the eerie silence as thieves held up pedestrians for their cars and purses, local media reported. In commercial centers throughout the area, packs of looters drove trucks into shop windows and carried whole racks of clothes and appliances on their backs.

This wave of near-anarchy has engulfed the state of Espirito Santo, a picturesque region along Brazil’s northeastern coast, since Feb. 4. That’s when the state police announced a general strike, leaving the streets open to gangs and petty criminals alike. The state government said that 143 people were slain in Espirito Santo between Feb. 4 and Feb. 13, compared to just four people in all of January.

Sounds horrible. One has to wonder how many Brazilians are seeking refuge status in the U.S.

Dodge worked with California-based vehicle control systems-maker InterMotive to repurpose the car’s rear parking sensors and backup camera to sense a person approaching from behind. If detected, the vehicle will flash its rear lights, lock all doors, roll up the front windows and display a video feed from the backup camera to the driver.

Let's expand the concept. Instead of speeding tickets, the traffic officers should assign some workout routine. Not everyone could do 200 push-ups in a short amount of time, but surely there's some exercise that could be punitive yet exhilarating. Jumping jacks on the side of the highway, for example. The more humiliating the better.

Here's where it could get good -- abled people parking their cars in disabled spots. The ticket fine is sky high in Texas. If a healthy person uses one of those spots then a couple of laps around the parking lot seems appropriate.

They'd have a choice, of course. They could always opt to pay the fine.

October 22, 2016

This should be convincing evidence that the Ferguson Effect exists, at least in this one case.

There are a couple of reasons why the racial rioters come out in force after a police shooting of a black person. There may be some people who have a sense of justice that they feel needs fulfilling. But they often fall into the other two camps. One group is there for political reasons. Racial discontent might drive up voting among African Americans. The Black vote is traditionally a reliable Democrat voting bloc.

The other is an effort by a smaller group with the intent of scaring police away so that war lords can rule the neighborhoods.

“This attack went on for several minutes,” he said. “As I was at the hospital last night visiting with her, she looked at me and said she thought she was going to die and she knew that she should shoot this guy but she chose not to because she didn’t want her family or the department to have to go through the scrutiny the next day on the national news.”

Blue lives matter. Maybe after the election the national news media won't be such active accessories in those BLM demonstrations.

Police reports from dozens of stores suggest the number of petty crimes committed on Walmart properties nationwide this year will be in the hundreds of thousands. But people dashing out the door with merchandise is the least troubling part of Walmart’s crime problem. More than 200 violent crimes, including attempted kidnappings and multiple stabbings, shootings, and murders, have occurred at the nation’s 4,500 Walmarts this year, or about one a day, according to an analysis of media reports. Sometimes they’re spectacular enough to get national attention. In June, a SWAT team killed a hostage taker at a Walmart in Amarillo, Texas. In July, three Walmart employees in Florida were charged with manslaughter after a shoplifter they chased and pinned down died of asphyxia. Other crimes are just bizarre. On Aug. 8, police discovered a meth lab inside a 6-foot-high drainage pipe under a Walmart parking lot in Amherst, N.Y.

But why is it so much worse at Walmart than at Target?

Police departments inevitably compare their local Walmarts with Target stores. Target, Walmart’s largest competitor, is a different kind of retail business, with mostly smaller stores that tend to be located in somewhat more affluent neighborhoods. But there are other reasons Targets have less crime. Unlike most Walmarts, they’re not open 24 hours a day. Nor do they allow people to camp overnight in their parking lots, as Walmarts do. Like Walmart, Target relies heavily on video surveillance, but it employs sophisticated software that can alert the store security office when shoppers spend too much time in front of merchandise or linger for long periods outside after closing time. The biggest difference, police say, is simply that Targets have more staff visible in stores.

Security experts, as you might imagine, recommend that Walmart hire more security personnel.

As for the fellow from my own ride-along who was hell bent on offing himself in the Walmart parking lot, we circled the lot a few times but didn't find him. It wasn't funny at the time, but looking back on it it's almost laugh-out-loud funny. It's bad enough to want to end it all, but in the Walmart parking lot? Now that's crazy.

The dispatcher couldn't get the girl friend back on the line, so we can only guess what happened. Anyway, another call came along, and we left the Walmart area. If Walmart has the high crime rate Bloomberg says, we should have stuck around.

July 20, 2016

The active shooter situation in Dallas -- in which five police officers were murdered -- was resolved when the shooter was dispatched with a fist full of C4 delivered by remote control robot.

According to one TV report, CNN I think, the robot carried the explosive up to the opposite side of a cinder block wall against which the killer was leaning. The explosive was discharged, and the killer was killed.

For some reason commentators are concerned about what they perceive as an ethical issue. Apparently, they think a killer shouldn't be killed unless the police officer puts him/self at risk. Some ethical issue.

News flash: By ambushing his opponents, the killer essentially waived the gentleman's rules of dueling. Or more to the point, violate the rules of decency and all rules are off.

July 10, 2016

Disclosure: I haven't read the book. However, it certainly has received some good praise, and it's about as timely as humanly possible.

The name of the book is "The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe." There's an excerpt at Freebeacon.com which addresses Obama's embrace of the false media narrative of the Ferguson, Missouri, encounter Michael Brown had with the police. Here's a brief excerpt from the chapter excerpted there:

This kind of misinformation about the criminal-justice system and the police can only increase hatred of the police. That hatred, in turn, will heighten the chances of more Michael Browns attacking officers and getting shot themselves. Police officers in the tensest areas may back off of assertive policing. Such de-policing will leave thousands of law-abiding minority residents who fervently support the police ever more vulnerable to thugs.

Obama couldn’t have stopped November’s violence in Ferguson with his address to the nation. But in casting his lot with those who speciously impugn our criminal-justice system, he increased the likelihood of more such violence in the future.

President Obama didn't pull the trigger on those police officers in Dallas. But his racial divisiveness certainly didn't do anything to quell the violence. It's as if he wants a certain segment of the population fired up and ready so he can use that force for political will.

Meanwhile, Black Lives Matter paused to take a breath after the "lone gunman" killed the police officers in Dallas. Then they carried on as usual. War on cops, indeed.

July 09, 2016

*How many shooters were there in ambush of police officers in Dallas Thursday night? Only one has been identified. He's now dead. Another person was taken in but released -- he was legally carrying a firearm.

But also, "Three people were said to be in custody and not cooperating with authorities." Source.

"Kill whitey" was a phrase popular in some circles back in the 60s when the progressives of the era saw racism everywhere and rationalized violent hate groups like the Black Panthers. And it certainly is discouraging to think we are returning to those days.

Most white people these days bend over backwards to try to be non-racist. In fact, they're so serious about it that the avoidance of the appearance of racism might in itself be a form of racism -- the racism of low expectations. Ideally, we could treat everyone the same without regard to the person's race. But that too, is racist.

In any event, the violence against the Dallas police officers is certainly discouraging. The racial angle just makes it worse.

*UPDATE: They're saying the shooter acted alone even though others were brought in under suspicion of participating in the murders. Most people in the situation of those suspects would be shouting their innocence at the top of their lungs. By remaining silent they certainly exercised some extraordinary self control.

Chris Baker at Luckygunner.com did a comparison of handgun ammo last year, and he said the FBI standard for bullet penetration into ballistics gel was 12-18 inches. See Handgun Self-Defense Ammunition Ballistics Test for a review of his test results, which, by the way, included four layers of fabric.

Presumably, the NYPD uses one of the ammo brands tested, and they'll probably be doing their own testing soon. But whichever ammo they used, that Carhartt jacket sure held up well. I knew there was a reason to like them.

The nypost.com article didn't say how many total shots the NYPD fired, only that four bullets didn't penetrate the jacket. The good news is that only one bystander was struck, and she was only grazed. She'll probably be shopping for a new jacket soon. Might I suggest Carhartt.

March 19, 2016

The other day the Midland Police Department released its annual crime report which was duly reported in the morning paper at an article titled MPD: Reported rape up 27 percent in Midland. It states that forcible rape went from 36 in 2014 to 46 in 2015.

Is that cause for alarm? The MPD says no as there is no serial rapist stalking unaware women, these are cases in which the women accused acquaintances. Victims may still feel victimized, but there is a difference.

In "he said, she said" cases it's always smart to weigh additional evidence which is what every good law enforcement agency would do. In light of that, how many of those cases resulted in a conviction? We aren't told that.

The local police department conducts Women’s Self Defense, R.A.D. (Rape Aggression Defense) classes to teach women physical defense tactics. It's a good bet that no woman who completed that class was among those statistics cited above. I imagine they emerge from the class with skills like those kick-ass young women we see in the movies -- able to vanquish armed attackers two at a time.

It's tragic when an innocent person is injured or killed by a stray police bullet. But it seems almost like criminal neglect when the police are such bad shots that they can't hit a target but go ahead and unleash a barrage of bullets in heavily populated areas.

Then there are the strict gun control laws favored by the mayor. One almost suspects the mayor has given up on police overshooting and simply wants to prevent the citizens from shooting back.

There must be thousands of local law enforcement agencies that are similarly vulnerable. And maybe it's just a matter of time before their employee files are corrupted or purloined by a thief biding his/her time for just the right moment to expose the information.

It's a small consolation, but at least the FBI hack only pertained to employee information and not pending case files.

In any event, with the ease displayed there, hacking into Hillary Clinton's email server was probably child's play by comparison.

December 30, 2015

I was watching C-Span this morning, and a lady named Tracey Meares was giving a speech to an attentive audience while the TV crawl identified her as former member of President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing.

She set the tone by quoting James Comer's recent remarks about the "Ferguson effect," then she went on to dispute that theory. And what this did was highlight the difference between most Americans' view of the police and Obama's.

America is a nation of laws which we hope will protect people and their property. However, the honor system alone won't make it work. There has to be a way to enforce the law. And that's what the police do. Most Americans see the police as keepers of the peace. However, Obama and his people see the police as an occupying force bent on inflicting pain on suffering victims. There are undoubtedly some individuals who have suffered at the hands of police. But those instances are actually quite rare.

What the police do is provide a presence that conveys a message to would-be law breakers that there is a good chance they will be caught. What prevents crime is the knowledge that punishment would be swift and certain.

Unfortunately, we are living through a period in which many among us want to be seen as victims of police. And too often an easy way to accomplish that is to goad police into reacting to a perceived threat.

December 23, 2015

"Run, hide, fight" was a viral video a while back about what to do when a disgruntled employee came to work aiming to kill. The scene I remember was the one in which the armed shooter walked past the sign at the front door which said guns were prohibited. Anyway, that was then.

There has been much news lately about the increase in number of background checks for gun purchases and applications for concealed carry licenses. There should be no disputing that the number of armed citizens is increasing. The required firearm training for the license, at least in Texas, consists of paper target practice with a minimum accuracy required to pass.

Law enforcement officers in most cities have active shooter exercises. (Previous posts at this blog have featured stories and photos from some of those exercises back in the day.)

There should be active shooter training for armed citizens, too. None of us wants a novice shooter doing a spray and pray in a crowded room. Likewise, none of us wants a tombstone engraved with, "He waited for the police."

Law enforcement at any agency could conduct the training, and if our local police at the Midland Police Department taught the classes they would surely be worth attending.

October 27, 2015

We all remember the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, after Michael Brown was killed by a police officer last year. By all accounts, except for the one from Brown's partner in crime, the killing was justified by Brown's aggressive actions toward the cop. The cop, Darren Wilson, paid the price by being hounded out of town by citizens and government officials alike.

That was a lesson to police officers all around the country, and now we have the Ferguson effect -- police officers slacking off for fear of ending up like Wilson. This was entirely predictable. If you want to discourage behavior, make the person doing it pay a high price.

Even FBI Director James B. Comey talks about it. Here's an excerpt from a speech he gave the other day:

Maybe something in policing has changed.

In today’s YouTube world, are officers reluctant to get out of their cars and do the work that controls violent crime? Are officers answering 911 calls but avoiding the informal contact that keeps bad guys from standing around, especially with guns?

I spoke to officers privately in one big city precinct who described being surrounded by young people with mobile phone cameras held high, taunting them the moment they get out of their cars. They told me, “We feel like we’re under siege and we don’t feel much like getting out of our cars.”

I’ve been told about a senior police leader who urged his force to remember that their political leadership has no tolerance for a viral video.

So the suggestion, the question that has been asked of me, is whether these kinds of things are changing police behavior all over the country.

And the answer is, I don’t know. I don’t know whether this explains it entirely, but I do have a strong sense that some part of the explanation is a chill wind blowing through American law enforcement over the last year. And that wind is surely changing behavior.

Barack Obama and Al Sharpton bear a big part of the responsibility for this for egging on the rioters when they should have kept their mouths shut. But that's what we get for putting a community organizer in the highest office in the land.

October 11, 2015

We've probably all seen a video or two of a law enforcement officer shooting some family's pet. One can almost understand if an officer genuinely feels threatened. However, most dogs want to protect their family, and a confrontational law enforcement officer might trigger that reaction. But most dogs don't go beyond making noise and don't represent a real threat.

It has happened enough times that animal advocacy groups lobbied for and got a law on the books in Texas requiring new law enforcement officers and those seeking a promotion to get training on the topic. Here's the way the Texas Humane Legislation Network describes it:

CANINE ENCOUNTER TRAINING FOR POLICE OFFICERS PASSED! THLN had a huge victory with HB 593 - The Mandatory Canine Encounter Training Bill. This bill, which requires canine encounter training for all new police recruits and some of those seeking advancement, will train thousands of Texas peace officers to better handle encounters with our beloved canines. THLN began working on this bill in 2013 and created key partnerships with law enforcement and victim's families. Last year, over 200 dogs were shot by law enforcement in Texas; hopefully, HB 593 will drastically reduce these incidents. A special Thank You to Rep. Nicole Collier and her staff who passionately advocated for this bill.

(Bold added for emphasis.)

Over 200 dogs -- that sure seems like a lot. Maybe some dogs' lives will be saved by this measure. In any event, the bill went into effect on 9/1/2015.

September 02, 2015

This could apply to Obamacare, the Iran deal, or any number of Obama's monsters.

However, here I'm referring to the racism that has erupted during, and was encouraged, by the Obama administration. He has injected his opinion at every opportunity to charge racism against police. Each time, without exception, he took the side against the police. And in fact, he counseled and encouraged the "Hands up don't shoot" crowd in spite of the overwhelming evidence that contradicted their version of the events surrounding the shooting of Michael Brown.

Now we're seeing weekly headlines about police officers being senselessly killed by some aggrieved black person. Obama didn't actually order the killings, but he abetted them with his encouragement of the various anti-police movements.

Recall the recent chant, "Pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon" as demonstrators shadowed police officers? Now they tell us it was that was just a joke. Ha ha. Some joke.

Oh, by the way. The story of Frankenstein didn't end well for the doctor. The monster, however, survived to make appearances in several sequels.

August 10, 2015

Which brings us to Blue Lives Matter, an organization started last year following the ambushing of two NYC police officers in what appeared to be retaliation for one or more of the incidents between police and African Americans that dominated the news at the time. The organization seems to be doing quite well.

And yesterday the Staten Island Yankees, a New York Yankees affiliate, hosted a Blue Lives Matter event at a game with the Brooklyn Cyclones. Good for them. But of course they came in for a predictable round of criticism.

Some of the protesters probably feel they have a legitimate gripe. But after revelations about the protesters-for-hire at the Ferguson riots, one has to wonder to what extent the protesters are going to serve as a political tool in the upcoming presidential campaigns.

As for police, the ones on the street have a dangerous job, and we need to appreciate that. Most of us probably have a love/hate relationship with the police. We love to know they are there if we need them. Unfortunately, they serve at the behest of politicians. And sometimes it seems as if the laws they're enforcing are intended to raise municipal revenue rather than make us safer.

July 02, 2015

There have been two high profile man-hunts in the news in the past few years. One was the hunt for the Boston Bomber. Recall that he was wounded in a gun fight but escaped in an SUV. He got out, ran away, and hide in a boat. One might think that a good tracking dog could have followed the scent and found him. After all, he was bleeding. But no. It was the boat owner who found him.

Of all the photos of police officers with dogs at that scene, none showed a Bloodhound.

Fast forward to last week when law enforcement officers were canvasing, grid searching, and tracking David Sweat and Matt David. Again, no Bloodhounds in sight. In fact, David Sweat is supposed to have said he was "hiding in a hunting tree stand when an officer walked past him."

A Bloodhound wouldn't have walked past him.

Law enforcement these days like Belgian Malinois for their canine squads. Malinois are smart dogs, and according to dogs.petbreeds.com, they can track. But judging from those two high profile cases, they aren't that good at it.

Malinois are very aggressive, and as an animal control expert told an audience recently, "they can tear your arm off." Anyone who has seen a police dog demonstration probably watched a guy covered in protective clothing take off running, and when the dog is released, he grabs the guy and won't let go. They put on a good show. But when it comes down to actually finding the suspect, it's up to the humans.